


Absentia

by Kiyaar



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: 12 Days of SteveTony, Angst, Anniversary, Aphasia, Brain Damage, M/M, Permanent Injury, Traumatic Brain Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5444753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/pseuds/Kiyaar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So the prompt for today’s 12daysofstevetony is “first.” You know what that means - ANNIVERSARY FIC!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Absentia

**Author's Note:**

> So the prompt for today’s 12daysofstevetony is “first.” You know what that means - ANNIVERSARY FIC!

They bake him a cake, as if he is a child. They bring it out with a single lit candle, but no one bothers to suggest that the fluorescent lights be turned off. He’s wheeled right up to the table. There are words on the cake, but he doesn’t know what they say. He hopes this doesn’t turn into an exercise in pushing his comfort zone.

His mouth doesn’t form up right, so someone else ends up blowing them out for him. It’s the small woman who always brings him pretty things – a sweater, soft socks, once – Jane? Is her name Jane? She’s wearing a yellow dress.

Steve is the one to feed him, and Tony would have wished to shrivel and die, once, but now he drools instead of opening his mouth.

“…made it,” Steve is saying. “–so proud, Shellhead…so far,” Tony understands. Steve smiles. He smiles at Tony and lifts the fork to his mouth. Tony watches the redheaded woman lick the icing off the candle.

One year.

Steve’s hand ghosts over his, where the new ring sits. But they cut the old band off and that whole arm is riddled with nerve damage and it feels like a shadow.

 

\- - -

 

Steve gets rid of the nurses for the rest of the day.

Tony dozes in his wheelchair with Star Trek reruns in the background until Steve is wiping his mouth and easing him out and coaxing him into the big tub in the master bathroom.

He’s lit candles. His voice is so low, a soft rumble in Tony’s ear, and the words he knows linger with the steam: _Shellhead. Love, Tony. Fix._

Shellhead: sometimes Tony thinks Steve is mixing that one up, but it seems to make sense to other people. They nod. They call him Shellhead, too, rarely. The blond woman who comes to watch movies with him, sometimes, she says it. Maybe it’s a joke, and he’s forgotten.

Usually the nurses do this. It doesn’t feel like a violation anymore. He’s becoming used to the idea that he was born without a shell. His soft useless flesh is his entire world, now. He knows Steve would do this every day if Tony could ask him to.

Steve is making soft noises, pressing his lips to Tony’s wet hair, wrapping him in a towel, wiping the drops out of his eyes, fixing his catheter.

Steve curls around him on their enormous bed, tells him about something called “team.” Tony can’t follow most of it – he gets names, once in a while. _Carol, fly._ Last year, this was dinner and hours of sex. Steve broke a lamp and answered the door naked for room service. “Groom does what he wants, Tony,” he’d said.

He is pulling out all his tricks. He cards his hands through Tony’s curling hair. He can still feel that – his head was in the helmet; some of his scalp can still discern warmth and pressure. He strokes over Tony’s shoulder until the tremors subside, a little, as much as they ever do. He produces a bottle of something that smells sweet and fragrant and rubs it into Tony’s skin, soothes it into his muscles (what muscles?).

“When…better,” Steve is murmuring, “Armor.”

Tony closes his eyes and wishes he had signed a DNR.

He doesn’t pull much of his weight in therapy sessions, now, lets the techs dip his hands in wax and curl and uncurl his hands and move his bare legs in the pool in the privacy of their vast, empty home. When it was still early, when they still wondered about the outcome, he was encouraged. _Therapy_ and _Try_ and _Improvement_.

Steve noticed, because Tony became Steve’s entire world the minute Tony came out of a coma with half of his skin burned off.

Steve noticed, the minute he gave up. They might have fought about it, Tony sitting there understanding one in 10 words, maybe, and Steve shouting until the director had come to remove him, crying.

Steve’s hand worms its way into Tony’s. Their rings click together.

So Tony tries. It’s their first anniversary, he hasn’t forgotten. He uses every ounce of his strength and curls his left hand loosely around Steve’s.

The first time, he fucks it up. He doesn’t remember the letters well enough, can’t sort them out. He gets out an “I,” an “L” on Steve’s broad chest. Steve strokes a thumb over his hand, and Tony wishes he could shudder, wishes he could scream, and tries again.

“Tony,” Steve says, and tries to move, but Tony digs his nails into Steve’s hand.

 _K-I-L-L,_ Tony thinks he finally manages, though he taps the final L again to be sure.

Steve is silent. Success, then.

Steve sobs, like a dam is breaking in him, like this wicked charade has finally undone him. 

The novelty of it should be welcome after so long feeling so little. 

“… _no_ ,” Steve is saying. “Find, Tony. Better. Tony.” 

Steve says his name, over and over. Tony, Tony, Shellhead, Shellhead, Shellhead, twisted up and broken and incomprehensible.

Tony falls asleep like that, Steve’s arms around him, Steve’s face dampening his shirt.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a [rebloggable tumblr post.](http://kiyaar.tumblr.com/post/135364367038/fic-absentia-312-days-of-stevetony) If the spirit moves you.


End file.
